What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[alfred russel]

Russia, and in particular Russian oligarchs, would very much like sanctions removed against Russia.  The sanctions make it much more difficult for them to move their money abroad and live abroad (since who would really want to live in Russia if given the choice)?  Not enough for Russia to actually change it's behaviour of course, but if given the choice Russia would like the sanctions dropped ASAP.

To put what you are saying another way, the oligarchs would very much like the sanctions removed because it would get them out from under Putin's thumb? 

[DGuller]

Russia, and in particular Russian oligarchs, would very much like sanctions removed against Russia.  The sanctions make it much more difficult for them to move their money abroad and live abroad (since who would really want to live in Russia if given the choice)?  Not enough for Russia to actually change it's behaviour of course, but if given the choice Russia would like the sanctions dropped ASAP.

To put what you are saying another way, the oligarchs would very much like the sanctions removed because it would get them out from under Putin's thumb? 

You make it sound like oligarchs are Putin's captives rather than willing caporegimes.

[Solmyr]

Being able to live with a sanctions regime isn't the same as working to one's advtantage.

The appeal of super corrupt strongmen is pretty damn limited. They tend to preside over regimes with lower standards of living, and get pushed out of office. The trend among the European parts of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact post communism is clear and Putin is in a minority position. Putin needs a conflict with the west, and he needs a scapegoat for why Russia sucks ass, and the sanctions provide both.

The sanctions are so narrowly targeted that they aren't useful as an explanation for why the average Russian's life sucks.  Access to the internet is too widespread in Russia for Putin to be able to lie about what the sanctions actually involve.

Doesn't matter to the average Russian. There's a turn of phrase that translates as "Obama/Biden shit in the stairway", meaning that anything bad happening is the fault of the West.

[alfred russel]

You make it sound like oligarchs are Putin's captives rather than willing caporegimes.

It is a great analogy (or maybe straight up description of reality). But remember there is no quitting the mafia.

[The Minsky Moment]

From the complaint in the infamous Sidney Powell -led "Kraken" lawsuit in Michigan:

17. As explained and demonstrated in the accompanying redacted declaration of a former electronic intelligence analyst under 305th Military Intelligence with experience
gathering SAM missile system electronic intelligence, the Dominion software was accessed by agents acting on behalf of China and Iran in order to monitor and manipulate election . . .analysis of the Dominion software system by a former US Military Intelligence expert concludes that the system and software have been accessible and were certainly compromised by rogue actors, such as Iran and China.

These allegations were supported by citation to a declaration from the military intelligence analyst, who was given the code name "Spider". The attached declaration stated:

I was an electronic intelligence analyst under 305th Military Intelligence with experience gathering SAM missile system electronic intelligence. I have extensive experience as a white
hat hacker used by some of the top election specialists in the world.

From the City of Detroit's motion for sanctions against the Kraken attorneys:

Plaintiffs did not properly redact the declarant's name when they filed the same affidavit in a different court, and it was publicly disclosed that the declarant's name was Joshua Merritt. While in the Army, Merritt enrolled in a training program at the 305th Military Intelligence Battalion, the unit he cites in his declaration, but he never completed the entry-level training course. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, which includes the battalion, stated "[h]e kept washing out of courses ... [h]e's not an intelligence analyst." Ex. 17. According to the Washington Post, "Merritt blamed 'clerks' for Powell's legal team, who he said wrote the sentence [and] said he had not read it carefully before he signed his name swearing it was true. Id. He stated that "My original paperwork that I sent in didn't say that." Id. He later stated that "he had decided to remove himself from the legal effort altogether" (which has not happened)

The Washington Post followed up on Merrit.  Turns out he was a vehicle mechanic in the Army.

[The Brain]

Ah yes. SAM missiles are a bitch.

[The Minsky Moment]

Trump on Milley:

If I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley. He got his job only because the world's most overrated general, James Mattis, could not stand him, had no respect for him, and would not recommend him. To me the fact that Mattis didn't like him, just like Obama didn't like him and actually fired Milley, was a good thing, not a bad thing. I often act counter to people's advice who I don't respect

If OJ Simpson were elected President, which has to be considered at least within the realm of possibility at this point, I could see him writing a book "If I was going to do a coup"

Trump obviously says a lot of monumentally stupid things, but every once in a while he pushes a little extra in an effort to make the Hall of Stupid Fame. This is one of those efforts.

So Donald Trump, the great CEO-President. whose supposedly best qualification for President was that he knew how to choose the "best people"(*) somehow managed for his first appointment to the most important civilian national security job in America to select THE most over-rated general in the entire world!  What's the chances of that?  (Lucky for him the world's over-rated general was an American, because even Mitch McConnell might have struggled approving an Albanian general for Defense). 

Having made the worst possible appointment in the entire world, he selected Milley for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the most important military national security security job. His qualifications were:
+ Obama fired him
+ Mattis didn't like him

Milley was not the first person Trump hired based on the qualification of being fired by Obama.  The first person Trump tried to hire on the basis of that sterling credential was Michael Flynn. That ran into the problem that Flynn committed a felony before he could  be confirmed, for which he subsequently pled guilty. The second person Trump hired on that basis was   . . . . James Mattis (**).  So, perhaps not the optimal criterion?

The idea that one should make decisions about how to trust by finding out who someone you don't respect dislikes is not an unusual one.  It it a common heuristic in junior high school clique formation.  However, it usually falls away as a decision criterion by the time one gets to Fortune 500 boardrooms, because it is laughably idiotic and doesn't work.


* As seen on TV
** Yes I know he "resigned".  To spend more time with his family etc.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNhfOZ7122k

First felony conviction of a Capitol rioter that I'm aware of.

8 months for "obstructing an official act."

Only way I can see them making that conviction is if he blabbed himself.

[Zoupa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNhfOZ7122k

First felony conviction of a Capitol rioter that I'm aware of.

8 months for "obstructing an official act."

Only way I can see them making that conviction is if he blabbed himself.

In other news:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/12/vote-j12.html

Texas man faces 40 years in prison for voting while on parole.

In a case of calculated political savagery, the state of Texas has arrested a 62-year-old African American man for allegedly voting illegally last year. The Republican administration of Governor Greg Abbott is bringing charges that could put Hervis Earl Rogers in prison for the rest of his life. Rogers was held on $100,000 bail for three days, until the nonprofit Bail Project posted bail and secured his release.

State Attorney General Ken Paxton ordered Rogers arrested Wednesday and charged him with two counts of felony illegal voting for casting ballots in the March 2020 Democratic primary and the 2018 general election, at a time when he was still on parole from a 1995 conviction for burglary. Each count carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years, and as a "repeat offender" Rogers could face even more jail time.

Rogers was celebrated in the media last year for his determination to vote in the Democratic presidential primary, when he waited in line for seven hours at a Houston polling place at Texas Southern University. He gave interviews to both CNN and a local television station, explaining that he had considered giving up and going home but stayed to do his civic duty.

In what has been described as "forum shopping," the state attorney general brought charges against Rogers not in Harris County, where he lives and voted, but in neighboring Montgomery County, which is 90 percent white. Harris County, which includes Houston, is majority nonwhite.

According to his attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Rogers served a prison term for burglary, was paroled in 2004, worked and raised a family until his parole (very lengthy under the barbaric judicial system of Texas) was discharged in June 2020.

There is no indication that Rogers had any idea that he was not allowed to vote, as indicated by his conversations with reporters while he was the "last man in line" at the polls in March 2020. Texas law requires that the parolee "knowingly" vote illegally, which his attorneys argued meant he should not have been charged.

"The arrest and prosecution of Mr. Rogers should alarm all Texans," said Andre Segura, the legal director of the Texas ACLU, in a statement. "He waited in line for over six hours to vote to fulfill what he believed to be his civic duty and is now locked up on a bail amount that most people could not afford. He faces potentially decades in jail. Our laws should not intimidate people from voting by increasing the risk of prosecution for, at worst, innocent mistakes."

Attorney General Paxton, who is spearheading the prosecution, wrote on Twitter: "Hervis is a felon rightly barred from voting under TX law." He boasted, "I prosecute voter fraud everywhere we find it!"

All indications are that it is Paxton, not Hervis Rogers, who should be behind bars. The state attorney general was indicted in 2015 by a grand jury on charges of felony securities fraud for pushing technology stocks to a group of investors without disclosing his own financial interests and failing to register with state regulators.

The case has been tied up in legal disputes over where it should be tried and how much to pay the special prosecutors. In the meantime, Paxton has run out the clock through nearly two terms in office.

Paxton is also under investigation by the state bar association for professional misconduct because of his leading role in filing baseless lawsuits after the 2020 presidential election, seeking to overturn the victory of Democrat Joe Biden.

Besides the obvious purpose of intimidating poor and minority voters and scaring them away from the ballot box, Paxton has timed the charges in this case for definite political reasons. Rogers was arrested on Wednesday, July 7, one day before the opening of a special session of the Texas state legislature summoned by Governor Greg Abbott to enact new restrictions on the right to vote, in the name of "election security."

Both houses of the Republican-controlled state legislature took their first steps to advance the legislation over the weekend, with a House committee approving the bill Saturday and a Senate committee doing the same on Sunday. The legislation is likely to be passed by each house later this week.

The main provisions of the bill are aimed at outlawing and criminalizing efforts by Harris County officials last year to provide easier access to voting for working people in that county, the most populous in Texas. The bill would ban 24-hour voting, voting at drive-through facilities and the unsolicited mailing of applications for absentee ballots. The latter were used by millions in the last election because of concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

Election officials who violated the new law would be subject to felony charges and long prison sentences. They would also be barred from interfering with efforts by partisan "poll watchers" to intimidate voters or disrupt balloting. Republican poll watchers have frequently engaged in baseless challenges to voter participation in heavily Democratic, particularly minority, areas.

The agenda for the special session includes a laundry list of ultra-right issues in addition to the new voting rules. Governor Abbott is seeking to ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools, restrict "morning after" abortion pills, ban transgender students competing in high school sports, bar "censorship" of right-wing voices by social media, and provide state funds to complete sections of Trump's border wall.

The Texas law on "election security" promotes the fiction of widespread "vote fraud" embraced by fascistic elements in the Republican Party, above all former President Donald Trump, to explain his lopsided defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Since that defeat, Republican-controlled state legislators have gone on a rampage, introducing nearly 400 laws in 48 states to restrict voter access. Twenty-four of these have already been passed and signed into law.

An earlier version of the Texas law was blocked in May when Democrats walked out at the end of the regular session, depriving the legislature of the necessary quorum. Abbott responded by vetoing the payment of salaries for either state legislators or their staff, and then called the special session.

According to a report in the New York Times, citing the thinking of the Democratic leaders in the state legislature, even this comparatively minor disruptive tactic will not be employed this time, in favor of an effort to pass amendments that might make the antidemocratic legislation slightly less vicious.

The state Democrats were said to be appealing to the Biden administration to push through a federal law overturning such state restrictions, although the White House has largely dropped the issue, offering only a $25 million campaign by the Democratic National Committee to "educate" voters on how to comply with the new ballot restrictions.

There is widespread popular opposition to the new restrictions, demonstrated by the hundreds who sought to testify against them at the state legislative hearings on the weekend. Republican state legislators, challenged to produce any evidence of vote fraud in Texas, acknowledged that they had none.

Out of 11 million votes cast in Texas last year, fraud charges are pending against 44 defendants, most of them individuals like Hervis Rogers who voted when they were supposedly not entitled to do so. Not a single case involves widespread fraud or ballot-stuffing on the scale that would be required to change the outcome of an election.

[Berkut]

Jesus Christ. That is just....embarassing.

[Josquius]

In what has been described as "forum shopping," the state attorney general brought charges against Rogers not in Harris County, where he lives and voted, but in neighboring Montgomery County, which is 90 percent white. Harris County, which includes Houston, is majority nonwhite.

Even ignoring the ridiculousness of the story overall...how is this possible?

[The Minsky Moment]

In what has been described as "forum shopping," the state attorney general brought charges against Rogers not in Harris County, where he lives and voted, but in neighboring Montgomery County, which is 90 percent white. Harris County, which includes Houston, is majority nonwhite.

Even ignoring the ridiculousness of the story overall...how is this possible?

It's possible if you ignore the law.  Something that is likely to happen when a criminal is elected state attorney general and permitted to stay in office.

[The Minsky Moment]

The selection of Montgomery County is not just to get the benefit of a white jury pool.

The Texas attorney general doesn't have independent authority to bring a criminal prosecution. The state AG has no criminal jurisdiction absent the consent of the local county DA. I think it is safe to assume that the Harris County DA would never have consented to this stunt. The venue selection isn't just a ploy, it's an abuse of power.

[Jacob]

Then there's Missouri keeping the wrongly convicted in prison: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-are-wrongly-convicted-people-still-imprisoned-in-missouri/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=124619844

[Zoupa]

Then there's Missouri keeping the wrongly convicted in prison: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-are-wrongly-convicted-people-still-imprisoned-in-missouri/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=124619844

I understand this is a legal limbo bullshit, but this was the part that killed me :

Missouri Governor Mike Parson has the power to pardon both men, but has so far declined to do so.

I mean... How do these people sleep at night? It's just baffling, completely incomprehensible to me.